Page 56 of Habibi: Always and Forever

QI’S POV

“Q i? Baby?” Tristan’s voice calls through the house, followed by the door closing loudly behind him.

“In here,” I holler back from our bathroom.

I’m standing in front of the mirror trying to get my hair to lay right.

It looked good this morning when I left the house, but getting caught in a random downpour on my way to the courthouse messed it up and I’m trying to fix it without taking a shower because that will run us late for our dinner reservation.

Tristan gets to the bathroom way quicker than he should have, meaning he’s rushing and panicking a bit, too.

I probably should have scheduled reservations for our anniversary on a weekend when neither of us had to work, but vision’s always better in hindsight.

He tucks his nose into my neck and pulls me tightly against his chest. He breathes me in deep and my eyes flutter closed because no matter how crazy life gets, it’s these moments where everything just settles.

“I’m sorry I’m running late. Let me just change real quick so we aren’t late for our reservation to…” he trails off, his playful eyes finding mine in the mirror.

I roll my eyes at his ridiculous attempt to trick me into telling him where we’re going tonight. “That is really the worst attempt you’ve made so far.”

Tristan’s whole face lights up as he huffs out a laugh. “I’m running out of time to guess,” he says as his way of an excuse.

“You are just going to have to suffer in suspense until we get there,” I stick my tongue out and he teasingly snaps his teeth at me.

This is part of the fun for him. He’s a sucker for surprises but for him the surprise is only half the fun, the other half is trying to guess and trick me into giving it up before he gets it.

But I know from experience it would take all the wind out of his sails if I gave in and told him.

“Go get dressed and let me finish fixing my hair so we can go,” I nudge him lightly with my elbow.

His eyes focus on my lips and he moves his hand towards my face.

“Okay, yeah, just, first, I need–” he whispers while pulling my chin around before his mouth descends on mine and he takes my breath away.

It’s been ten years since I kissed Tristan for the first time and told him I wanted to be an us, and four years since we said ‘I do’ on our university football field.

Even after all this time, his kisses still blow me away.

They are still as grounding and fully capable of taking me out of whatever chaos is happening around us and tethering me to him, and to us, and to everything that we are.

“Keep that up and we’ll end up celebrating our anniversary in the bathtub instead of on our date,” I breathe into his mouth, my toes properly curled and my system begging for more of Tristan’s mouth on mine.

Tristan’s eyes take on a contemplative look as he glances between me and the bathtub and I have to huff out a breath because that wasn’t much of a threat at all for him. “ Tristan… ” I growl out in warning.

“Wait, I’m thinking,” he says seriously and I laugh at that while lightly shoving him towards the closet.

“Go get changed.”

Tristan throws his hands up in defeat. “Alright, alright, but we’re revisiting bathtime discussions afterwards,” he barters and all I can do is grin because that's already how I envisioned the night ending.

Even after all these years, the bathtub is still our sacred sex-free safe space.

The hotel room we spent our prom night in sparked an obsession with having jacuzzi tubs and the only time we go without is whenever we stay over at my parents’ house.

And we can thank Tristan’s dad for the jacuzzi tub that takes up the bulk of the space in the bathroom in our new house because it definitely wasn’t there when we initially toured it while househunting.

Our parents were absolutely thrilled that we moved back to our home city instead of staying in our university city when we graduated.

We had made enough friendships and waves in our community and professional lives by the time we graduated that there were a ton of offers for us to pursue our careers there, but we were ready to come home.

We’re both close to our parents, and over the years, we have grown into being as close to each other’s parents as we are with our own.

We stayed with Tristan’s parents while we looked for work and saved up enough for a house. Tristan had already been saving up a sizable chunk, but staying with his parents gave us time to find careers we really wanted and to get better situated before buying our own home.

Tristan is a licensed clinical social worker who focuses on children in foster care and group homes, and I’m a lawyer.

I would love to say I’m a human rights lawyer, but I don’t get that many cases for human rights.

Most of the ones I do get are pro bono cases, and I hope with time and built reputation I’ll have the opportunity to take on more in the future.

I make sure to take as many cases as I can when I get them, however, I also have to counteract that with paid cases as well, which are primarily family law, with a focus on adoption.

My queer advocacy roots are even more deeply embedded in my heart now than they were when I was a teen, so most of the adoption cases I take are for LGBTQIA+ couples looking to grow their families.

It only takes about twenty minutes for Tristan to get changed and for us to be heading out the door.

He tries to get the surprise out of me again by offering to drive, which I counteract by kissing him senseless before pushing him into the passenger side of the car with a glazed look in his eyes.

Between the two of us, he definitely prefers to drive more than I do, but with how much running around I have to do everyday, I’m used to it.

I just don’t find it a hobby like he does.

His eyes are saucers when we pull into the restaurant he took me to over ten years ago for our second date.

It’s definitely outside of our budget but after a decade together I wanted to take him somewhere personally nostalgic for us.

Our real anniversary celebration will be next weekend when we go out of the city to a B & B for a few days, but I still wanted something special for today as well since it’s the official date we shared our first kiss and I asked him to be mine.

I’ll never forget the way he lit up that night.

He’d been pursuing me for months and the happiness that ran through him when he knew he’d won my heart is something that’s stuck with me over the years.

He’s still as zealous over me now as he was then, only I match his energy now more than I did when I was younger and confused with my aceflux demiromantic orientation.

He turns and looks at me with those gorgeous hazel eyes of his with the little flecks of amber sparkling away in them. “I haven’t been here since I brought you here for our second date,” he says with tears brimming his eyes.

My face breaks out into a grin as I take in his emotionally overwhelmed expression.

It amazes me how cold he can be for some people versus how warm and expressive he can be for the ones he wants to really see him.

When we first met, he was mostly cold to everyone but me and his inner circle.

However, with time, he learned to warm up around people he feels are safe, and especially when he’s around the kids he works with.

He can still put up that cold front whenever he feels it’s necessary, but it’s no longer his primary shield like it once was.

I reach up and cup his cheek and he nuzzles down into my palm, brushing his lips along my wrist.

“How can we afford this?” he asks and I clear my throat awkwardly.

He’s still learning the value of money, so to speak.

He was born into a ridiculously wealthy family, and while they raised him to be cognizant of money, that didn’t necessarily translate to him understanding the realities of what budgeting means for lower and middle class salaries.

That was until he met me and realized neither of our careers were going to be raking in the dough by any means.

Tristan has a decent middle class wage job, and I’m the same.

With a child psychology degree and a law degree, we both could have chosen fields that paid more, but those kinds of positions don’t align with what we want to accomplish, so we opted for something that was more attuned to our hearts and less attuned to our wallets.

“Not easily, I’ve been pinching pennies to save up for it…” I trail off, leaving a significant part of it out.

“You called my mom, didn’t you?” he accuses with a grin.

I huff out a breath. “Well, you know how she is. She loves to spoil us so much and we never let her do it. You’d think ten years worth of Christmases landed on her doorstep when I told her what I wanted to do for our anniversary this year.”

Tristan laughs. “It’s okay. Dad helped out with the B & B,” he shrugs and I laugh at that.

If we gave his parents their way, they’d have bought us both top of the line vehicles to get around the city in, along with our house and they’d have made it three times the size it is now.

They love spoiling us and we rarely let them, so when we ask them for anything it makes them happy and we don’t feel bad for taking advantage because it’s something we very rarely ever do.

“This is where you told me you hoped you would fall in love with me. I didn’t know what it felt like to really fly until that night,” he says wistfully once we’re seated.

Technically, I’d said that after we left the restaurant, but it was still one of the most cataclysmic realizations of my life.

I’d already started to fall, but it was this date over ten years ago that really solidified how much I wanted him.

I smile at that. “Luckily, that dream came true.”